No Escape is an intense, unsettling movie. The filmmakers are John Erick and Drew Dowdle, whom have also done Quarantine, As Above, So Below, and Devil. As is clear by their previous projects, these guys are drawn to stories about human suffering and terror. No Escape transformed the demons usually featured in their films into the terrorizing rebels of a nameless, Asian country. Their main target is Jack Dwyer (Owen Wilson), a Texan who has just moved his family to the country to start anew with a management position in a water company. After a coup, the rebels of the nation rise against American tourists with stunning violence, their hatred later explained to be born of the oppression they’ve suffered from American water companies in their land.
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There are a lot of great things about this film. The cinematography was interesting, particularly the use of deep focus, which gave a clearer picture of the exotic setting. The tracking shots of Jack as he explored the tourism hub put the viewer right there with him, and the use of changing or altered light during different scenes set the feelings of threat and suspense. For most of this film, one feels completely unsettled as Jack and his family do their best to continuously evade their vicious attackers. The Dowdles certainly know how to make a good thriller; the suspenseful sequences never felt fake or over dramatic.There are also some deeply emotional moments between Jack, Annie and their young daughters as they all try to cope with their situation. It was the emotional scenes that made the film go above and beyond just a thriller. They provided for some great character development, were very touching, and above all, felt real. Most of the moments during this film that a viewer can relish in a feeling of relief or at least an emotional distraction are short lived, though, and it isn’t until the very end that the tension finally, completely dissipates.
A small issue, but I could have done without one of the throughlines of the film. One of the girls (played by Sterling Jerins and Claire Geare) asks a couple times during the film to hear the story of when she was born. The end scene shows Jack telling the story to his family as they recover together. This scene, as well as every time that the girl asked to hear the story, are very unrealistic. In such a scary situation as they were in, a child asking to hear a story, which turned out to be partly grim and emotionally heavy, was borderline ridiculous. The last scene made the ending feel corny, and I was left a little annoyed with it.
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The Pierce Brosnan character, Hammond, is mysterious and convenient to the story. He is a bit one-dimensional, but his lack of development fit the character type. A trope relating to his character that I wish they had sidestepped was his revealing a sliver of his dark past when giving a necklace to one of Jack’s daughters. This seems oddly specific, but I’ve seen this done before with mysterious or underdeveloped characters. The scenes go like this: child is upset, adding to the tension of the scene, a male character comforts the child with a small heirloom which he explains to be related to his past, and then child calms down. In No Escape, one of the girls begins to break down, and Hammond gives her a ring from his daugher. The scene was unnecessary, as it didn’t support the character development of the daughters. They had both been brave and obedient throughout the rest of the film, but one was suddenly disruptive for the benefit of a fluffy scene.
If you’ve read about No Escape, the likelihood is that you read a piece that condemned it for being racist or propaganda-esk. Justin Chang in Variety says No Escape is a “technically accomplished, morally rank slab of cultural exploitation…,” Peter Travers at Rolling Stone notes, “for the nonwhite members of the community, who cares? This movie doesn’t.” The film has been accused by some of being xenophobic, Peter Sobczynski at rogerebert.com included, who also calls it “a dreadful and creepily exploitative would-be thriller, low-grade trash…”
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The filmmakers have spoken about their decision not to give a name to the country in the film and have pushed back against accusations of propaganda and racism. Drew argues that humanity is given to the rebels when Pierce Brosnan’s character, a British spy, explains the actions of the rebels to Jack, “Hammond tells us the rebels are not wrong. The violence is wrong”. On not giving the country a name, Drew said that they “didn’t want to make a statement about any one country”. I think that critics have been way too harsh on this film. You can be offended without tagging the entire film as garbage. Calling it as such is simply over dramatic and untrue. No Escape has great cinematography, realistic characters, and is one of the most intense films I’ve seen in a long while. Forget always having to take issue with something, and enjoy the film. 8/10.
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